Category Archives: Tim Tate

The National Liberty Museum’s exhibit, Transparency: An LGBTQ+ Glass Art Exhibition began in June 2017 andran through August 6, 2017. For more than 40 years, LGBTQ+ identifying people have gathered in the month of June to commemorate their struggles, celebrate their identities, and advocate for their communities. Known as “LGBT Pride Month”or simply “Pride”this worldwide phenomenon reminds us that the freedom to live our truth is necessary for a liberated society. For Pride 2017, the National Liberty Museum hosted the nation’s first museum exhibit of studio glass works produced exclusively by artists of the LGBTQ+ community.

Tim Tate: “We Rose Up”

Glass Art Magazine covers artists online and in print and also via their new podcast series, “Talking Out Your Glass“. The series features interviews and discussions with world-renowned glass artists and respected experts in hot, warm, and cold glass.

Episode 31~ National Liberty Museum: Transparency

This episode features a podcast tour of the National Liberty Museum and its recent exhibition of work made by LGBT+Q glass artists. Featuring interviews with artists Tim Tate, Jenny Pohlman and Sabrina Knowles. Click on link below to have a listen.

London Contemporary Art has created a platform for artists to showcase their work in the heart of London and has brought together a unique blend of talents from all around the world.Carefully selected from over 800 applicants, LCA endeavoured to present a diverse show displaying a broad range of techniques, mediums and philosophies.The exhibition showcases 21 National and International artists who demonstrate the very best in creative process, craftsmanship and technique. First Place and the first ever LCA Prize winner was Emma Leone Palmer, and our Tim Tate was awarded second place!

There will also be a Public’s Choice Award which will be open to all members of the public submitted through a ballot box in the gallery. The votes will be tallied at the end of the show on the 26th February.

Artist Tim Tate has been pulling traditional craft into new realms and depths. Tim shared his newest series “Witnesses of Wonders” and the work is incredible. In this series,Tim has been using elements that were 3-D printed at Catholic University’s modeling department combined with infinity mirrors to expand the sensation of unlimited space in the artwork.

From Tim’s artist statement about his series:

Tim Tate, “21st Century Guernica”; Glass, Cast Images, LED; 36″ x 36 x 4″. In this piece a ring of translucent refugee boats float in the center, all with no where to turn to. The center ring is shared with red poppies, the symbol for war remembrance in England. The outer edge is made up of individual images from the powerful Picasso painting entitled Guernica.

“I try to entice the viewer to look deeply into and completely experience my windows into alternative dimensions. My works create an optical and bodily illusion of infinity through apparently limitless space. There is an intimacy created by viewing deeply into a circular opening, as if peering through a portal to witness another endlessly repeating reality.

Tim Tate, 21st Century Guernica – detail . Said Tim about the imagery of the refugee boats, ” Refugees right now are trying to escape unspeakable atrocities and protect their families who are turned away at country after country. This is the shame of our decade. “

The constant repetition of imagery also speaks to us of timelines: ones that go endlessly into the future or extend endlessly into the past. These repetitions reference society mired into static social patterns, some good, some bad.

Tim Tate. “21st Century Guernica” detail. “Picasso made his painting in mostly tones of black white and gray “to drain the life out of them”. I drenched them in red and returned color to them because this horror is happening right now in this world….in fact this very second.” said Tim Tate.

We look inside these portals as if seeing into a dream, fully realizing that this is but an illusion. But even though we know it is a illusion that should not stop us from freely examining it, and hopefully seeing another world at the same time.

Uncomfortable with any single defining time, I prefer sliding through the centuries; from 19th century Victorian techno-fetishism, to mid and late 20th century references to endless mirrors and studio glass to 21st century electronics and political focus. Perhaps all my work can be defined by how uncomfortable I am with definitions.” Tim Tate.

For more images of Tim Tate’s newest works – click HERE to have a look at his website

Tim Tate, “The Endless Cycle”. Said Tim about this work: “For every man shown here, 1000 people died last year because of gun violence. For every gun shown here, a child dies every day. A hard lesson we have to learn from Orlando…..only by joining together can we hope to curtail gun violence.”

Washington Glass Studio recently completed commissions for artwork in a refurbished downtown Bethesda building lobby. Working with art consultants,Directions in Art, Washington Glass Studio began creating artwork options for two levels of an office building that was undergoing a major renovation.

The proposed floor-to-ceiling glass artwork was designed to be fully backlit with LED panels, giving the artwork a strong visual punch. The artwork proposals were presented to the client, and the direction on colors was approved.

Crushed glass (frit) was used to make the large circles of glass color.

Working with the building architects, the design was modified to allow for a stainless steel surrounding frame. The framework would conceal the electrical transformers required for the LED wall. Timing and coordination issues for installation on two separate floors were addressed, as were wall structure concerns.

Artists Audrey Wilson and Erwin Timmers discuss the fabrication of the glass panels.

Michigan’s Habatat Galleries will be exhibiting at SCOPE New York March 3rd – 6th of 2016! Make sure to plan to stop by Habatat Galleries Booth for the most exciting display at the show – as they will be featuring works by Sean Hennessey, Michael Janis and Tim Tate!

With over 75 art fairs spanning more than 15 years, SCOPE is celebrated as the premier showcase for international emerging contemporary art and multi-disciplinary creative programming. Renowned for its uncanny ability to forecast new visual trends that are embraced globally, SCOPE Art Shows garner extensive critical acclaim. With an attendance of 1.2 million visitors, SCOPE Art Show is the largest and most global emerging art fair in the world.

SCOPE New York opens on Thursday, March 3, 2016, with a VIP Preview benefit, and will run March 3 – 6, 2016.

Every fall Chicago, IL hosts the critically acclaimed Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Expo, more commonly known as SOFA. SOFA Chicago 2015 will be held November 6 – 8, 2015 at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, where masterworks from top international galleries and dealers from numerous countries will exhibit. An opening night preview will be held Thursday, November 5. On par with Art Basel and TEFAF Maastricht, the critically acclaimed art fair has been continuously run every year since 1994. What distinguishes SOFA from other top art events is its focus on three-dimensional artworks that cross the boundaries of fine art, decorative art and design. SOFA is noted for its exceptional presentation of artwork by international galleries and it is enhanced by the many talks to attend in the Lecture Series given by award-wining designers and artists.

This year, a number of Washington Glass School artists will be featured at the art fair, and the artists are bringing new works that have taken them in new directions. Tim Tate will be giving a “Booth Talk” at Habatat Galleries (space #1400) on Saturday, Nov 7 @ 1:00 pm. Just after that talk, at 2:00 pm, Sean Hennessey and Michael Janis will be featured at the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass (AACG) Ice Cream Social on the terrace at Navy Pier.

Allegra Marquart (Maurine Littleton Gallery, Space #821) has mixed her cast glass with textile, exploring the new possibilities for color, texture and especially line. Allegra has been stitching connections that create open, delicate looking backgrounds that complements and comments on the bolder glass shapes which are mounted slightly in front. The glass and the threads compliment concepts of fragility and ambiguity.

Sean Hennessey (Habatat Galleries, Space #1400) will be presenting works that take him in a new direction, both in terms of the brightness of the colors and in the use of a separate panel that incorporates photographed and drawn imagery, telling a slightly different side of the story from the larger panel.

Michael Janis (Maurine Littleton Gallery, Space #821) explores concepts of identity with his frit powder (sgraffito) drawings with cast glass elements. New this year are his ceramic and glass sculptures.

Tim Tate (Habatat Galleries, Space #1400) is showing his new illuminated pieces, his infinity series. Tim entices the viewer to look deeply into his created environments, create an optical and physical illusion of infinity through apparent limitless space. There is an intimacy created by viewing deeply into a circular opening, as if peering through a portal to another reality.

Washington Glass School’s Professor Michael Janis and Professor Tim Tate will present a lecture on glass art and architecture to students and faculty of Catholic University’s School for Architecture and Planning (CUArch) at the Crough Center for Architectural Studies as part of the Fall 2015 Fab Lab Lecture series.

I am a child of studio glass. I was, and can continue to be, in love with the sheer beauty of glass and art in general. As a lifelong student of Penland School of Crafts I developed a love of all things natural and extremely well made. Regardless of the medium, the more beautiful and skillfully constructed , the more intriguing the work.

I also have another side to my brain. I love all things thought provoking. I love edgier art, I love time based work…..I love video, electronics and technology in mixed media sculpture.

So I always have a choice when I create a piece. Do I make it achingly gorgeous or do I embrace the edgier technology? Certainly if I choose one way or the other, my life will be made easier. There are many more opportunities for makers of beautiful objects…..and many more institutions that love time based media.

As much as I want to though, I do neither. Neither Ultra-Baroque or Techno-fetish, but a bit of both. Whichever side of my brain calls to me, I always still hear the other whispering. I live uncomfortably in the middle, always trying to find that balance between these 2 worlds. The beauty of one side’s sweetness is always tempered with the saltiness of the other.

I have lived in this limbo of discomfort for so many years that it has begun to feel like the natural order of things. The tension caused between the two sides always viscerally present, like a ghost photo at the turn of the last century. Always hovering there, but just beyond reach, just out of direct sight and never fully resolving which side will gain dominance.

So here I stand on the rope, feeling very balanced after so many years of not falling.

Washington Glass School Director/Mixed Media Sculptor Tim Tate never seems to be at a loss for words – yet he does have his moments where important things were left unsaid. Tim sent this letter looking for a second chance to say what he wants all to know about how Penland School of Crafts changed his art, his work and his life :

What I Meant To Say At Penland by Tim Tate

This last week I gave a very short presentation of my current work during the board meeting at Penland. It was among my worst presentations ever. Here’s why.

For one thing, I have been making an effort to speak more seriously about my work. I did not take into account how overwhelmingly emotional this place was for me. I started to choke up before I even began, then could barely choke out 20 disjointed sentences during my short slides lest I completely lose it. I garbled out something about wanting to tell stories. (dear god).

Throw in my complete intimidation by being surrounded by such accomplished artists and board members…all of who seemed to have amazing academic training. It was a hot mess…

Here’s what I meant to say:

I am an artist who did not come to art through academics. While I yearned to go to Cranbrook as a young man, my parents had neither the resources or interest in sending me there. I sought another profession. Only years later did I see the path of artists retreats like Penland. Finally a path within my control. Thus began my educational journey which took me to Penland 20 times, also Corning, Haystack and Penland….always searching for a kiln forming or non-vessel related class.

Even though I did not come out of the studio glass system, I still loved glass with all my heart. For 10 years I took every free moment, every vacation day to attend these artist retreats. In effect, I created my own curriculum for an unsupervised MFA. After that I thought I had enough of a voice to step out as a full time artist, and haven’t looked back since.

I meant to say that my overall work has meaning. I meant to say that I see my pieces as self-contained video installations.

Blending a traditional craft with new media technology gives me the framework in which I fit my artistic narrative. Contemporary, yet with the aesthetic of Victorian techno-fetishism. Revelation —, and in some cases self-revelation, — is the underlying theme of my electronic reliquaries and baroque cast frames.

My interactive pieces can be seen as disturbing because the images that stare back from the video screen prompts a variety of responses: amusement, discomfort, embarrassment, something akin to the feeling you have when someone catches you looking at your own reflection in a store window as you walk by.

But the important revelations here are in the viewer’s response to my hybrid art form and its conceptual nature. I try to bare everything — the guts of my materials and my inner thoughts — in deceptively simple narrative videos set into specimen jars or ultra-Victorian cast glass picture frames. Nothing is random, all elements are thought out.

I meant to say that to me, these works are phylacteries of sorts, the transparent reliquaries in which bits of saints’ bones or hair — relics — are displayed. In many cultures and religions, relics are believed to have healing powers. My relics are temporal, sounds and moving images formally enshrined, encapsulating experiences like cultural specimens. And perhaps, to the contemporary soul, they are no less reliquaries than those containing the bones of a saint.

With technology rapidly changing the way we perceive art, the current day contemporary landscape closely mirrors Victorian times in the arts. We marvel at and invent bridges between past and present in an effort to define our time and make sense of this highly transitory moment in artistic history.

I meant to say that an artist can make it without going through the academic system. That a strong voice and hard work can count just as much. This has been taken so frequently as disrespect towards MFA programs and studio glass. They tend to shout down those that are not vetted with their peers. I had great respect for them, I just chose my own path. The path of using the artist retreats as my personal MFA program.

I had a bias. My bias was towards extremely narrative work. Not nearly as plentiful then as now. I sought out those classes which would help me in that effort. I wonder if I would have stayed on this path if I had been accepted into an academic program. We’ll never know.

I wanted to say to all the new core and resident artists that I was blown away by their mature work. I wanted to say…..just keep making work. No matter what, just keep making. You are only 1000 pieces away from your goal…..get started! My premise is that an artist who makes a living from his art work will continually evaluate his work, will grow quickly with each new piece. That the working artist approach produces very good work if you put the time and energy into it.

I meant to say that I lived half my life feeling invisible. I had always had to leave DC because there was little glass for me to work on here. My life happened away from where I lived. Then I realized something. When no one saw me….Penland always did. When my own family didn’t see me, Penland did. When other local artists couldn’t see my work, Penland did. When my friends and even my partners could not see me…Penland did. Penland saw a young man who was completely dedicated to moving his art forward. Penland will also give respect to any artist who is dedicated to his craft and vision. They will always see you. That is the environment that everyone sitting in that room was surrounded by. Not just a place, but the best support system that any artist may ever know.